Social Selling: A Modern Method for the Modern Salesperson

Every aspect of B2B marketing has moved on to social media... except sales, right?

Wrong.

Sales is no longer going door-to-door trying to sell your product only to have the door shut on your face. Neither is it getting hanged up on because people don't want to be bothered with cold calls.

No, sales has moved on from the traditional practices and has adopted modern methods, one of these methods being social selling.

Coined circa 2006, this buzzword has become one of the best marketing strategies that benefit both, the salesperson as well as the buyer.

In his and social selling workshop, Mr. talks about the importance of including social selling in your marketing strategy. Let's take a look at what social selling is and why you should consider using it in your strategy.

What is Social Selling

essentially means that you use social media as a tool to find and target the right prospects, just like cold calling or door-to-door selling (except a bit more convenient) (and more productive) (and a lot less annoying).

This form of modern salesmanship allows you to build relationships with your prospects and give them valuable information while subtly persuading them to buy your product or service.

Why Choose Social Selling

As mentioned earlier, social selling helps you form a relationship with your prospects, which is vital when it comes to sales. If you have a good relationship with a potential buyer, not only will you be able to reach your sales goals, but you will most likely get some loyal customers for your brand.

The largest social media demographic, the people who fall under the age group of 18 to 34 years, are also decision-makers in most B2B companies. That is a lot of target audience that is actively engaged and involved online. Social selling gives you an opportunity to connect with all of these potential prospects.

Majority of your target audience is already on social media, using social search and social listening to look for sellers, researching them, and forming opinions about them before they have even come in contact ("social buying"). If you are not showing up as an option for them to chose when they social search, you are missing out on a potential sale.

To add to that, most of your competitors are already on social media, pursuing leads and converting them into sales. If you don't get onboard with social selling, you are going to be left far behind.

Uploading creative videos and sharing interesting blogs yields a lot more leads and has a better ROI than traditional methods like cold calling. In his , Mr. Amit Jadhav, a and social selling speaker, says that "Videos have chiefly become the pre-dominant content form over the Internet."

Social selling, if used right, is a great asset for anyone looking to use social media as a platform to reach their sales goal. In the pursuit to closing deals, though, you have to remember to not spam your potential buyers with generic automated messages that will definitely put them off.

Instead, engage with them personally; build your relationship with them; provide them with valuable information. It may sound more work than simply creating a list and sending them all a generic mail but the effort is well worth it if you get more leads and sales.

http://www.amitjadhavs.com/